Burned bigtime: Zeti is a dead woman walking
In short, as the police would say, it was an inside job and it involves people in high places in Bank Negara Malaysia — the current governor, Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus, included. Without Zeti and Shamsiah opening the gate, 1MDB would not have been robbed of billions in Malaysian taxpayers’ money.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Tim Leissner’s testimony in the US court is extremely damaging to former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz. And with no uncertainty this spells her doom. Zeti is burned bigtime and is now a dead woman walking, sitting in death-row, and merely waiting for the hangman’s noose.
Thus far Zeti was being protected by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Daim Zainuddin. But even the two Tun warlords of Malaysia cannot save someone with a noose around her neck. Mahathir and Daim will have to distance themselves from Zeti if they do not want to get splattered with her blood when her head comes off.
So there is more than meets the eye to this 1MDB scandal after all. Whether Najib Tun Razak did or did not steal RM2.6 billion (or more) from 1MDB is no longer as important as how did he manage to do it if he did so? Now we know, and it is because Zeti opened the door so that the thieves can come in.
In short, as the police would say, it was an inside job and it involves people in high places in Bank Negara Malaysia — the current governor, Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus, included. Without Zeti and Shamsiah opening the gate, 1MDB would not have been robbed of billions in Malaysian taxpayers’ money.
The Malaysian media (other than FMT) reported the trial in the US but did not mention the Zeti part in the ‘Greatest Heist in Malaysian History’. However, FMT (read below) did not publish the documents, which Malaysia Today has done so below.
The testimony in the US court is so damaging that if Zeti is not arrested today that can only mean the current Ismail Sabri Yaakob government is no better than the governments of Najib Razak (Kerajaan Kleptocrat), Dr Mahathir Mohamad (Kerajaan Cina-DAP) and Muhyiddin Yassin (Kerajaan Gagal) before this.
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BNM okayed US$1bil transfer after bribe was given, Leissner tells US court
(FMT) – Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) approved an “overnight” foreign exchange transfer of US$1 billion from 1MDB to PetroSaudi International (PSI), after then central bank governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz’s husband had allegedly been bribed to “make it happen”, former banker Tim Leissner told a US court.
Leissner, the star witness in the trial of Roger Ng, former Goldman Sachs head of investment banking in Malaysia, described the overnight transfer of the US$1 billion from 1MDB to PetroSaudi as “unprecedented”.
It is understood that this US$1 billion included US$700 million to Good Star Ltd allegedly controlled by Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.
Court documents sighted by FMT show that Leissner, a former Goldman Sachs executive, told a jury at a federal court in New York on Tuesday that when it became known that 1MDB had made the transfer, Ng related to him what he had heard about how the BNM approval for the transfer was given “that quickly”.
Leissner said: “You have to understand in 2009 Malaysia still had capital controls in place, which would require an investment of that size to be approved by Bank Negara in terms of the money leaving the country.
“A billion dollars was wired overnight from Malaysia to the joint venture and that it had been done because the husband of the then governor Zeti at Bank Negara had received a bribe to make that happen.
“So, overnight that money was transferred, which was unprecedented at that time. No approval was obtained that quickly from Bank Negara.”
Last November, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission revealed that at least RM65 million in 1MDB-linked funds recovered from Singapore were held by a company belonging to Zeti’s husband, Tawfiq Ayman.
Zeti’s husband and two sons have admitted to knowing about the money in statutory declarations (SDs) signed in March last year. The money was in the accounts of Cutting Edge Industries in Singapore and the three admitted to being the beneficial owners of the accounts.
